Missouri

Missouri,
named after the Missouri Siouan Indian tribe meaning "canoe", is a Midwestern
state of the United States with Jefferson
City as its capital. The state's nickname is the Show-Me State;
the U.S. Post Office abbreviation for Missouri
is MO and the state public university's main branch is located in Columbia.
The Mississippi and Missouri rivers are the two large rivers which flow
through this state.

USS Missouri was
named in honor of this state.

State
Motto

"Salus
Populi Suprema Lex Esto"
"Let the Welfare of the People be the Supreme Law"
Compare with King Charles XIII of Sweden (1809): "The welfare of
the people my highest law".

History

Originally part
of the Louisiana Purchase, Missouri
was admitted as a state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise.
It earned the nickname "Gateway to the West" because it served as a
departure point for settlers heading to the west. During the Civil War,
Missouri, a slave state,
was split with portions adhering to the Union, and others seceding with
the southern states.

Law and Government

The capital of Missouri
is Jefferson
City and the current governor of the state is Bob Holden (Democrat).
Missouri's two U.S. senators are Christopher S. Bond (Republican) and
Jim Talent (Republican). Missouri
has 9 districts in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The current constitution
of Missouri, the fourth
constitution for the state, was adopted in 1945 and provides for 3 branches
of government, the legislative, judicial and executive branches. The
legislative branch consists of two bodies, the House of Representatives
and the Senate. These bodies comprise the General Assembly of the State
of Missouri.

The House of Representatives
has 163 members that are apportioned based on the last decennial census.
The Senate consists of 34 members from districts divided such that the
population of each district is approximately equal.

The Judicial department
consists of a supreme court consisting of 7 judges. Superior and inferior
courts are also provided.

North of the Missouri
River lie the northern plains that stretch into Iowa,
Nebraska and Kansas. Here, gentle
rolling hills remain behind from a glacier that once had extended from
the north to the Missouri River.

The Ozark plateau
begins south of the river and extends into Arkansas,
S. E. Kansas, and N. E.
Oklahoma. Springfield,
Missouri in southwestern Missouri
lies on the Ozark plateau. Southern Missouri
is the home of the Ozark mountains, a dissected plateau surrounding
the Precambrian igneous St. Francois Mountains.

The southeastern
part of the state is home to the Bootheel, part of the Mississippi Alluvial
Plain or Mississippi embayment. This region is the lowest, flattest
and wettest part of the state. It is also the most fertile. It is here
that one finds cotton and rice production. The Bootheel area was the
focus of the great New Madrid Earthquake of 1811 - 1812.

Although now generally
considered part of the Midwest, Missouri
was once thought of as Southern. For example, Mark Twain, who grew up
in Hannibal, Missouri,
in Life on the Mississippi described his upbringing as in "the South".

Economy

Missouri's total
gross state product for 1999 was $170 billion placing it 18th in the
nation, while its 2000 Per Capita Personal Income was $27,445 or 28th
in the nation. Major industries include aerospace, transportation equipment,
food processing, chemicals, printing/publishing, electrical equipment,
light manufacturing.

The agriculture
products of the state are beef, soybeans, pork, dairy products, hay,
corn, poultry, and eggs.Missouri
is ranked 6th in the nation for the production of hogs and 7th for cattle.
As of 2001, there were 108,000 farms, the second largest number in any
state after Texas.

Missouri
has vast quantities of limestone. Other minerals mined are lead, coal,
portland cement and crushed stone. Missouri
produces the most lead of all of the states in the Union with most of
these mines in the central eastern portion of the state. Missouri
also ranks first or near first among the production of lime.

Demographics

As of the 2000 census,
the population of the state is 5,595,211. Major cities include Saint
Louis and Kansas City. Its population grew 0.6% (478,310) from its 1990
levels. According to the 2000 census, 84.9% (4,748,083) identified themselves
as White, 2.1% (118,592) as Hispanic or Latino, 11.2% (629,391) as black,
1.1% (61,595) as Asian, 0.4% (25,076) as American Indian or Alaska Native,
0.1% (3,178) as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander 0.8% (45,827) as
other, and 1.5% (82,061) identified themselves as belonging to two or
more races.

6.6% of its population
were reported as under 5, 25.5% under 18, and 13.5% were 65 or older.
Females made up approximately 51.4% of the population.

151,196 Missourians
were foreign born. 81.3% were high school graduates (higher than the
national average) while 21.6% had a bachelor's degree or higher.

The mean commute
time to work was 23.8 minutes. The homeownership rate in 2000 was 70.3%
with the mean value of the owner occupied dwelling being $89,900. There
were 2,194,594 househoulds with 2.48 people per household. The median
household money income for 1999 was $37,934 with the 1999 Per Capita
Money Income of $19,936. There were 11.7% (637,891) Missourians living
below the poverty line in 1999.

Religion

Approximately 1
out of 5 Missourians holding religious beliefs are Roman Catholics;
many of those live in central Missouri
as well as around Kansas
City and St.
Louis. Baptists, Methodists, and Lutherans account for most of those
belonging to Protestant faiths. Kirkwood,
outside St.
Louis, is the headquarters of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
Kansas City
is the headquarters for the Church of the Nazarene and Independence,
outside of Kansas
City, is the headquarters for the Community of Christ (formerly
the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), and the
Latter Day Saints group Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints. Springfield
is the headquarters of the Assemblies of God.

Culture

There is an idiom
"being from Missouri" which relates to the state's unofficial slogan:
"show me" (which even appears on their license plates. People from Missouri
have a reputation for being skeptical.

Education

Missouri's public
school system includes kindergarten to 12th grade and requires all children
between the ages of 7-16 inclusive to be enrolled in a school. The University
of Missouri is Missouri's statewide public university system, having
campuses in Saint
Louis, Kansas
City, Columbia
and Rolla. Additionally,
Missouri has several regional
public universities in different parts of the state, the largest being
Southwest Missouri State University having the second largest student
enrollment after University of Missouri-Columbia.

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